Forward to Happiness

My Own Faith

Lately, I have been coming back to my faith in a more deep level. I have never been without it, but at times certain things have happened that made it difficult to practice due to connections or location or more. I have also struggled with concepts like or with certain trials, but that was because of a misunderstanding of what faith could be in absence of expectation or self need focus. However, I had to have that time away from the depth to learn to appreciate and understand a lot of things about myself, about life, and about the on a personal level.

However, as I build my faith up, agian, there are certain things that I want to use as guides for my personal growth in it, and I want to share them in case they are also beneficial to you, as well.

First of all, my faith will be MY faith, as it has been but more fully. It is a without it being tied to another person in between. No one should have the authority or ability to interfere with your faith connection to God. We should remember that God says He is a , and some of his strongest warnings of judgment in the that is more about love is to warn against disrupting the faith journey of anyone else. This is like my blog posts about my understanding of the purposes of and that our freedom should not be used to disrupt the faith in God by others.

It will be personal, though I will speak of it from time to time, as I think it is a good thing for everyone to establish on their own with their God, not involving me. But, there will be a lot of faith moments for me that never reach social media, because... that not the point of it. I may date or be friends with others that have faith, but it will not be a requirement and they will never have a role in my faith other than a companion and not someone either leading me in it or judging me for it.

It has become and will continue to be a source of peace and stability for me, as it is always there, and it travels with me wherever I go. But, my whole life will not consist of it. I have quite a few other interests, which will remain my interests.

So, that is just a few points I wanted to make as my cooking is in the oven. I hope they help others.

Agency - You Are Responsible

It is not only a shame but a waste of time that so many of us over our lives spent so much of our time trying to determine and to argue who is to blame for our current condition or current struggles or for why we do not have this thing or that thing. At times, I have been part of those that engaged in that kind of analysis but not recently. Most of my life, though, I spend my time trying to find solutions or ways to do things better so that my results turn out better and so that I can become better.

However, has become so popular, today. was the name of a that I did one semester in a pass / fail course just for fun from the . In the course, there were a lot of textbooks, and it was more structured as a . So, rather than making conclusions the point of the course was simply to present facts and . I could have never guessed that this course would have so much relevance in our current day.

The highlight of the course was the fact that so many different cultures were raise to believe that their current condition was the result of THIS group or that group and to totally bypass the fact that everyone.. every single person.. has .

What do I mean by . I mean the ability to act on behalf of someone. That is what that word means. Sometimes, we can delegate that to another person, though I would exercise caution in doing that. But, the PRIMARY person with authority and ability to act for your life is YOU. It is like the quote that .

In reality, you cannot blame anyone else for your sequence of events that happen in your life.. or at least not solely responsible. We all in some way make a choice.. to stay, to love, to invest our time, to sacrifice, and so forth. Can someone take advantage of that. Yes. But, you also could be responsible for not speaking up about your own needs or your own boundaries. You also chose to give to them, and giving is a good thing in this world, within reason. But, none of our past was written without our consent.

So carrry that forward to the present and the future. Who has the most authority and ability to impact our lives? We do. So, when difficulties come, as I aid it is a waste of time and energy to spend our time looking for blame rather than looking for how to fix a situation or how to move on to other alternative paths.

So, do not forget that the person with the greatest is you, and then take the time to love yourself enough to choose good paths that can lead you to happy outcomes.

Pride - Good and Bad

English is a funny and confusing language, when you compare it to other languages, and that definitely applies to someone that tries to read the , oftentimes. For example, we have one word for love, whereas there are like six in . Even when there is only one word, it is often used and meant in different ways with different meanings. If we are not careful, we can end up in dismissing some things from our desire to defend something that we feel is right.

An example of this is the word "." We have read of how in the is supposed to have fallen from pride. Now, a lot of us, especially in our younger years but often true in older ones, too.. will take issue with that. We SHOULD feel good about ourselves, we argue. If we have done good things and accomplished certain things, why shouldn't we feel happy for that and if we believe we should not feel happy for that it can rob us of needed that helps promote our growth in other areas. In order to grow, you must believe that you can.

However, I don't think that is what the problem would be. That's not the kind of damage that pride can do. It isn't about loving yourself for the good that you do. It is more about depriving yourself of the good that is DUE, out of the refusal to admit that you can be wrong or flawed or the need to have others acknowledge you as being good.

There were times in my life when I had to go on or in the life stage in which I found myself. I would risist it for a long time, even as I found my options shrinking. I didn't want to admit that I could need help, and so I would suffer and not have as good as conditions as I could have out of my pride of feeling myself too good for the help.

Similarly, there have been times that I was determined to win or be proven right in a conflict or disagreement with someone else. The end result of that desire was loss of connections and potential that could be had if the need to "win" was set aside.

So, while it is good to feel happy about your accomplishments, it is destructive to feel you are too good to be mistaken, flawed, or wrong for seeking your own way. And, that misunderstanding can cost you more than you were made to lose. or does not break you down. It is the beginning of beginning to rise.

What It's Like to Walk in Faith

There was a Christian band that I listened to when I was much younger that was called Angelica, I believe. They were a screaming guitar rock band, as many of the bands of that time where. They had this one song that was called Walking in Faith. So, being a young Christian I was like..... yeah... WALKING IN FAITH at the top of my lungs and believing that everything would be perfect in my life, like a Biblical providence story unfolding. I really believed that was what the Scripture meant when it said to walk in faith. You claimed your belief and waited for God to make it happen. There are quite a few that still believe that is true, even though that is closer to spell casting than faith in God... or life for that matter.

The kind of understanding that I have come to have about faith is that it is hard, often lonely, filled with reasons to doubt, takes a long time, changes you, and often is answered in a way that you do not expect. I have walked in faith many times, and I am doing so, again. In those moments, you wonder a lot of things.. if it will happen, if you are stupid to try, if you are enough, and if you are doing the best that you can do, for example. Faith isn't about having the answers and knowing things with clarity. If it was, it wouldn't be faith. Faith is not knowing all of these things and yet TRYING.. stepping up to the plate to take a swing and then swinging, making the move, beginning the fitness goal, making the plans and then executing your best, even on the difficult days.

But, you were not meant to do it alone. I know it often feels like that is the case, but that is what faith in God REALLY is all about. It isn't speaking some words to get what you want. It is letting it break you down enough to tell God about it, who is standing there waiting for you to call and wanting to be there for you like every parent feels and wants for their kids. Faith isn't getting your desires. It is about desiring and walking in the direction of the goal, trying your best, forgiving your worst, and receiving God's grace and peace on the journey.

And, that is what I wish for you, tonight. I hope you had a good weekend. Let's walk in faith in the weeks to come.

Noise

I wasn't going to post tonight, but I feel that it is important to share WHY it was important not to post, tonight. I didn't want to post tonight, because I was not feeling that I had something to say. I had not received any perspective and was not feeling any inspiration that was saying this was important to tell otheres. So, as I generally do, I chaulk that up as a learing day or a pause day to myself.

Now, on the other side of that, it has been long enough to post to promote the blog, and my stats.. which are already good enough... have begun to blog. So, the pressure is to post something.. anything.. and hit on things people want to hear to promote. But, anyone that knows me knows that that kind of pressure has an almost reverse effect upon me. I have not ever and do not post content to please others. I post what I feel led to post, and I don't feel led to post. So, this will be tonight's post. I am going to watch this baseball game I am watching, and I will listen to music, and I will think about my coming move and probably ovverthink different things and feel things that I want to consider without posting... which is the human right to anyone alive, today. But, this will be the only post that I do.. a post to say... tonight is not for you. And whether posted or not, expect other nights that are the same.

The New Begins Today

There has been a lot of lessons that I have learned and ways of that I have explored and am doing. The posts of those lessons have been good to share, and I will note them in the future at times. However, I have been feeling the desire from within and as a result of my development that my focus must change both in my own life and the large part of this blog. I have spent a lot of time discussing the change andon the topic of what are good and things to be doing to help to move from paths that does not lead to to foundational ones that do. But, I don't want my own thinking or this blog to be stuck in the transition or change period, just as it is not good for you to be stuck there, either.

Therefore, I am going to be taking a focus in my life and my blog to actually be LIVING the and BEING the that I have been becoming. I do realize that this blog post is talking about the change, but I desire the future ones to be posting about the good without need for context that brought it there or . At some point on the , you must allow yourself to just be happy. It isn't something I have not been doing. I have already been chooseing to focus on the positive and growth and hope. But, especially as my date of my is approaching, I want to focus on the good that is found in my day and what I like about myself and more.

So, my social media will become more personal to me and my life joys and successes, and my lessons in this will have a lot more examples I share of being... happy. My old posts will still be out there and I am continuing to work to get them indexed. But, just as my often lead to a good ending, I am going to move my life, daily, to reflect that for myself, as well.. not because I found someone with whom to share it all but because I found myself to experience it. It's time that that began.

Being Reasonable

I was reading on social media this morning that , and it occurred to me that my has influenced areas such as this, as well. The post was saying that if you were feeling a little heavier than normal and more drawn to emotions, the retrograde was the cause.

I don't need planets moving to feel emotions, but I began removing control over my plans by my emotions a while ago. I think it started when I was processing and realizing that had led me to many difficulties and had cost me many things that were valuable to me.. again.. not just feelings of positive but negative reactions, as well. So, I determined that the best thing I could do would be to use my very smart brain to , REGARDLESS of my feelings on any particular day.

It's not always an easy path. I still feel the full range of emotions at different times. I feel love and longing and fear and pain and more at different times, but as you make it a habit to feel the feelings, let them pass through you without a hand on your life wheel, and stay fixed on plans, it gets easier to do so as you go forward.

So... ? I didn't even notice. I have enough things changing in my life, right now, to justify any emotional unsteadiness, but my path and plans are fixed and progressing; and knowing that gives me the peace of stability in the now and the future.